open access: research output gone viral!

Open Access:Research Output Gone Viral!

Amos Kujenga

EIFL-FOSS National Coordinator, Zimbabwe

[email protected]

National University of Lesotho, 22 October 2013

mailto:[email protected]

Definition of Open Access Open Access Routes Benefits of Open Access Open Access Concerns Open Access and Social Media

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Outline of Presentation

Academics are continuously struggling to achieve set Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

“...the tenure process is tightly intertwined with the promotion process and publishing.” (MADRIGAL, 2012)

There is little awareness of Open Access in academia

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Issues of Concern

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Open Access Defined

“Open Access (OA) is the provision of free accessto peer-reviewed, scholarly and research

information to all” (UNESCO, 2012).

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Statement/Declaration Date

Budapest Open Access Initiative February 2002

Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing

June 2003

Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities

October 2003

OA Declarations/Statements

To encourage researchers to make their materials available in OA (through self-archiving in OA repositories or publishing in OA journals)

To develop means and ways to evaluate OA contributions to maintain the standards of quality assurance and good scientific practice

To advocate that OA publications be recognised in promotion and tenure evaluation

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Berlin Declaration Highlights

Improves the speed at which the results of research are spread

Increases the visibility, usage and impact of research by enhancing seamless accessibility via the Internet.

As a researcher, publishing in an OA journal allows anyone with an interest in your work to read it - and that translates into increased usage and impact (MACQUARIE, 2010).

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Benefits of Open Access

“Closed access is probably an extenuating factor to poor understanding of many important issues in science.” (WICKS, 2012)

OA offers authors discoverability. For this reason, OA articles tend to attract higher levels of downloads than subscription-only articles. The potential readership of OA articles is far

greater than that for articles where the full-text is restricted to subscribers (MACQUARIE, 2010).

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“The free online availability of research articles may introduce new ideas or themes to undertake research studies and could fuel more research” (PATTANAYAK & SAGAR,2010)

Allows the professional, practitioner and business communities, and the interested public, to benefit from research through increased access (UNESCO, 2012).

OA can reduce plagiarism.

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“Science works on an open interchange of ideas. If things aren’t available, then ideas aren’t being interchanged...Scientists want their ideas to be talked about” (MCNAMUS, 2007).

When research output is made freely available online it provides users with the latest peer-reviewed information and discoveries (MACQUARIE, 2010).

Theses and Dissertations reach wider audience and supervisors and institutions gain reputation.

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OA does not promote plagiarism Copyright law should be respected The more visible a work is, the easier it is to

notice when it has been copied/plagiarised OA does not ignore the peer-review process

OA does not affect peer-review; articles are peer-reviewed and published in journals in the normal way (MACQUARIE, 2010).

Open Access Concerns

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OA repositories do not replace journals OA archives or repositories do not perform

peer review, but simply make their contents freely available to the world. They may contain unrefereed preprints, refereed post prints, or both (SUBER, 2004).

They are additional venues for published articles (CONCORDIA, 2013).


“Open Access journals can have similar impact to other journals, and prospective authors should not fear publishing in these journals merely because of their access model.” James Pringle, Thomson ISI

In 2012, 163 of Springer’s 397 OA journals were listed by ISI and had an Impact Factor

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The “GOLD” route Use of OA journals - those journals whose

funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access (DOAJ, 2013)

OA journals perform peer review and then make the approved contents freely available to the world. Their expenses consist of peer review, manuscript preparation, and server space (SUBER, 2004).

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The Gold Route to Open Access

Citing the high cost of journal subscriptions, Harvard’s Faculty Advisory Council in 2012 urged faculty to “consider submitting articles to open-access journals” (HARVARD, 2012)

Example: Public Library of Science (PLoS)

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Fee-Based OA Journals These are the “journals for which users are

granted an irrevocable, world-wide, perpetual access without any financial or other barriers and the authors (or the sponsoring Institute) bear the cost involved in making it publicly accessible” (PATTANAYAK & SAGAR, 2010)

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Fee-Based OA Journals Costs are met very much as in television and

radio stations: those with an interest in disseminating the content pay the production costs upfront so that access can be free of charge for everyone with the right equipment (SUBER, 2004).

Require payment by or on behalf of the author Such payment may come from the author or from

his/her research grant (at times this is waived)17


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No-Fee OA Journals Can be supported by institutions, e.g., produced

from within a university

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The “GREEN” route Achieved via repositories such as Institutional

Repositories, or personal websites Depending on policies in place, can capture

more material, faster (UNESCO, 2012). Work deposited in one or more IRs has an

increased likelihood of being found (or discovered) by potential users (students or other researchers) since IRs are easily searchable through popular search engines.

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The Green Route to Open Access

The “GREEN” route The majority of publishers now allow some

form of archiving in their copyright agreements with authors, sometimes requiring an embargo period (BJORK & SOLOMON, 2012).

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Some major publishers allow the published PDF version to be deposited in an IR (CONCORDIA, 2013):

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Some major publishers allow the post-print (final, refereed manuscript) to be deposited in an IR (sometimes with an embargo):

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The “HYBRID” route Where a fee can be paid to make a single

article OA in an otherwise subscription-based journal.

In some cases, the publisher will reduce the subscription cost in line with the new revenue coming in from OA charges, but in most cases this is not offered.

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The “Hybrid” Route to Open Access

The dissemination of research depends upon the copyright holder’s consent.

Copyright is a bundle of rights: authors of journal articles normally sign the whole bundle of rights over to the publisher, though this is not normally necessary.

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Open Access and Copyright

Authors (or their employers or funders) can retain the rights they need to make the work OA, assigning to the journal publisher the right to publish the work (and to have the exclusive right to do this, if required). Such premeditated retention of sufficient rights to enable OA is the preferable course of action rather than seeking permission post-publication. (UNESCO, 2012)

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Open Access and Copyright

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Aims to increase the visibility and ease of use of

OA scientific and scholarly journals, thereby promoting their increased usage and impact.

Aims to be comprehensive and cover all OA scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content.

Aims to be THE one stop shop for users of OA journals.

Accessible on http://www.doaj.org 30

Finding Open Access Content

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Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD) A discovery service intended to improve the

ability to put researchers and scholars in touch with the valuable and unique OA content.

Available on http://oatd.org

PQDT Open Provides the full text of open access dissertations

and theses free of charge. Available on http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/

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Digital Repositories Infrastructure Vision for European Research (DRIVER)

Considered the largest initiative of its kind in helping to enhance repository development worldwide.

Attempts to create a pan-European umbrella organization for digital repositories.

Search page available on http://search.driver.research-infrastructures.eu/

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A journal’s influence is generally determined by counting the number of times its articles are cited (PICKARD, 2012)

The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) has been a key measure used to evaluate scholarly work and identify researchers’ prestige, promotion and tenure world-over (BERNAL, 2013).

The advent of the Internet, gave way to new journals, new data and new approaches for assessing research.

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Evaluation of Scientific Literature

The Journal Impact Factor Simply considers citations Does not consider real-time indicators of impact Does not capture impact on practitioners some of

whom may never publish Does not show evidence of public engagement in

ideas Scholars may discuss, recommend, refute, or

teach a new finding before it is ever cited (PRIEM, GROTH, & TARABORELLI, 2012).

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Measuring Research Impact

Altmetrics is the study and use of non-traditional scholarly impact measures that are based on activity in web-based environments.

As scholarship increasingly moves online, these metrics track associated interactions and activity to generate fine-grained data, allowing researchers and policy makers to create a higher resolution picture of the reach and impact of academic research.

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Altmetrics

Although OA articles may be accessed more frequently, traditional impact factors measure citations rather than readership.

When OA is combined with social media, the influence of research articles shifts from publications to individual researchers.

By sharing research findings via social networks, one can quickly get feedback from other experts. There have been reports of papers being corrected this way, soon after publication.

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OA and Social Media

Sharing links to published OA articles can enhance opportunities for collaboration with other experts in the same or related fields.

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OA and Social Media

“Getting relevant feedback from the scientific community is crucial and with the growing importance of the social web, we should be able to leverage its power and communicate or collaborate without borders and limitations. Open access should and can accelerate this process,” Dr Bertalan Mesko, Social Media expert.

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OA and Social Media

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Description Example

Social media Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook

Online reference managers CiteULike, Zotero, Mendeley

Collaborative encyclopaedias Wikipedia

Blogs, both scholarly and general-audience

WordPress, Blogspot, Blogger

Scholarly social networks ResearchGate, Academia.edu

Conference organization sites

Lanyrd.com

Source: (PRIEM, GROTH, & TARABORELLI, 2012)

OA Impact Data Sources

Major research funders such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Wellcome Trust have started requiring OA publishing from their grantees (BJORK & SOLOMON, 2012).

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (the world’s largest research funder), now requires that all their funded research be placed in an openly accessible database, and so is it with Harvard University (MACQUARIE, 2010).

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Funders’ Response to OA

Open Access is now joined by other concepts in abroader ‘open’ agenda that encompasses issues such as Open Educational Resources (MOOCs), Open Science, Open Innovation and Open Data (UNESCO, 2012).

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The “Open” Agenda

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Submit your research articles to OA journals, when there are appropriate OA journals in your field.

Deposit your work in an OA repository. Establish full-text Electronic Theses and

Dissertations (ETDs) for your institution, backed by policies mandating students to submit their work.

Support OA journals by serving on their boards or refereeing their papers whenever possible.

Promoting Open Access in Academia

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If not already, advocate for your institution to be a signatory to the Berlin Declaration. Afterwards, push for policies that put it into action.

Help to build strong editorial boards for OA journals so as to increase their influence and reputation.

Volunteer to serve on your institution’s committee to evaluate faculty for promotion and tenure, then push for policies that enforce the Berlin Declaration principles.

Promoting Open Access in Academia

Thanks to support from top management, a growing number of institutions in Africa are signatories to Signatories to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access. However, such moves should be supported by institutional policies that are put in place to enforce the stated positions. Furthermore, librarians should take advantage of the power of social media as a tool to boost the impact of research output made available via Open Access.

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Conclusion

Thank You

Amos Kujenga

EIFL-FOSS National Coordinator, Zimbabwe

[email protected]

National University of Lesotho, 22 October 2013

mailto:[email protected]